


Out

by cynthia_arrow (thesilverarrow)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5740279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/cynthia_arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It wasn't possible Severus Snape was actually worth pursuing, was it? And it certainly wasn't possible he actually wanted to be pursued?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted to livejournal, 2007. It was part of a suite of off-the-cuff ficlets, so I've edited it a bit and given it its own title.)

Severus Snape was a creature of habit. He found that both amusing and comforting, in an odd way. Even with the vast majority of students gone home for the holidays, he kept to a schedule, and since it was one Sirius had bothered to learn (okay, had begun to learn unconsciously, although it sounded better if he could make these ridiculous urges seem intentional), he knew precisely where he would be after dinner.

There were more Gryffindors than usual staying around for the break between terms, at least a dozen, as well as nearly that many Ravenclaws. There were only a handful of Hufflepuffs, but the Syltherins were the most poorly represented in the cavernous and mostly empty great hall at dinner: just Snape and a couple of skinny, giggly third year girls. In the interest of building a sense of community in the quiet castle, the students all sat at the same table during holidays, for a time dispensing with house rivalries, where any actually existed. All in all, those left behind this time were an amiable lot, except for Snape, who sat hunched over his plate and didn't even look at anyone much less speak.

He did, however, sit at the same table as Sirius, despite several other more likely places he might've hidden himself. Sirius wanted to be encouraged by that, but he wasn't sure if it was more or less passive aggressive than the way the guy had been staring at him through every class they shared all term. That amounted to a good deal of his time spent looking at Sirius and not at his books. It was only when Sirius began to stare back that Snape stopped.

  
At first, it had been a nice game—make Snivellus nervous, let him know he was on to him and his little crush. It was a private game, too, something he hadn't seen fit to share with the other boys. But there was something about that face, the combination of pale skin and dark eyes, formidable nose and thin, rosy lips, that kept drawing him back, over and over. He was the best sort of puzzle, because once Sirius started really paying attention to him, even after he learned his habits and memorized every scowl had made as well as every subdued smile, he found that he still couldn't quite make sense of what to _do_ with such a person. He was, however, sure that there was something to be done.

Sirius would like to say he had left off antagonizing Snape first, but he hadn't. In fact, his pestering intensified, at least in intensity, although it was now more about getting a reaction and gathering information than it was idle pissing him off. He had eventually given that up when he found that it no longer seemed to bother Snape; he simply shrugged it off, sometimes even with a smile. James and Peter found this turn infuriating. Sirius found it…confusing, especially his reaction to it.

It wasn't possible Severus Snape was actually worth pursuing, was it? And it _certainly_ wasn't possible he actually wanted to be pursued?

Snape ate slowly; the two yammering Slytherin tarts did not. He'd done a good deal of watching them, too, for lack of better occupation, and he knew they ate very little and then skipped back to the Slytherin common room to scoop up their brooms for an afternoon of flying. They were also the world's most harebrained girls—just how they were Slytherins he had no idea—because they didn't exactly bother about things like closing doors. He'd actually found that out when he got up the nerve two days before to have it out with Snape after a long afternoon of epic staring-and-looking-away on both their parts, only to lose his nerve long about the steps to the dungeon. But not before he heard Snape coming up the corridor, muttering about batty girls without the sense to keep their common room shut up. Apparently, it took a lot to gain entrance to the Slytherin enclave, but there was no mechanism to protect against carelessness.

Which was either ridiculous or entirely fitting, considering how blithely that lot treated the rules sometimes. Sirius often wondered if he really shouldn't have been sorted into Slytherin, especially as he waited for the silly girls to finally leave the hallway so he could slip into the Slytherin common room. He expected to find a protective charm casting him out again, but there wasn't one. Probably, he thought, they would be set up to work against the Muggle-born. If his parents had taught him nothing else, it was that he was pureblood wizard.

He wondered if Snape was pureblood. He had a strange feeling he wasn't. Snape was a whole lovely mixture of things, and as Sirius settled himself on an overstuffed chair by the fire, it really hit him exactly where he was and just how crazy this was and precisely how badly he must've wanted to learn more about all the parts of that mixture of moods and attitudes that was Severus Snape—apparently even the depths of his paranoia.

As soon as Snape came into the room and found him sitting there, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at him.

"Out," he said. Not _How did you get in?_

Sirius held up his wandless hands. "No."

"What the bloody hell are you doing down here?" he hissed, wand still clutched in his hand, though he lowered it.

"Comparing common rooms. Yours is nicer, by the way."

He glared at him a moment longer, testing the waters, then he sighed and made a show of trying to be just as nonchalant as Sirius was, dropping his satchel on the ground beside the couch and perching on the arm of it, his back to the fire. "So you've finally gotten bored enough to antagonize me? What a surprise."

"If I was going to antagonize you, I'd've done it at supper. I came here to talk."

He braced himself for another snappish comment, but instead Snape just raised an eyebrow, then he crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh?"

All at once, his heartbeat pounded up into his ears, and his palms came over all sweaty. Bloody hell, he chastised himself, this is just Snivellus…who was staring at him, rather unabashedly now, for all his lingering bewilderment at the situation.

So Sirius just stared back, long and hard, in a way he hadn't been able to in class, in front of everyone else, until Snape's face went pink and he bowed his head.

"Oh, I see," Sirius said. "It's perfectly all right for you to sit across the room from me in Dark Arts and try to burn holes clean through my skull with your eyes, but when it's turnabouts, you get stupid and sheepish."

"Not sheepish," he snapped, head coming up. "It's just that I know what you're playing at, Black, and I'm not stupid enough to fall for it."

"Aren't you, though?" he replied, voice coming smooth and low now, slower. "Can't hide it. It’s plain as day, just from the way you look at me. Everybody knows."

His voice was choked: "Everybody?"

Sirius smiled. He couldn't help it, just like he couldn't help coming down here just to get the man to fucking talk to him. "No," he said quietly. "Nobody but me."

For a moment, he thought he'd gotten in, penetrated those large dark eyes, but then Snape suddenly fluttered up off the arm of the couch and went to stand with his back to him, by the fire.

"Get out," he muttered.

"No."

"I could get you in so much trouble for being down here."

"But you won't, because you want me here."

"So what," he mumbled. Turning, he repeated, "So what!" He took a deep breath, trying to rein it in again. "If you're done having your fun, I wish you would just go."

"This," Sirius said with a sarcastic chuckle, "is not fun. _You_ are so rarely fun, at least when we're up there, doing what we do best. That's not why I came."

He could see his profile, how Snape's eye narrowed and a cautious smile played over his face. "And what is it you think we do best?"

He would have sworn Snape was trying to be seductive, except he wasn't, just sure of himself, needling in the same way Sirius always needled him. It worked anyway. He instantly knew that was part of why he was down here—Snape had a way of disarming him even when he wasn't particularly trying.

Sirius said, "Well, apparently we've become excellent starers. Why _do_ you watch me so much?"

He didn't deny it. He simply said, "I don't understand you."

"I realize that."

"No. I mean, that's why I stare."

"So it has nothing to do with you liking me?" Snape didn't reply, didn't even look at him, in fact, despite the waves of tension emanating from him, so Sirius added, "It's why I'm always looking at you, I think."

Snape's face turned toward his and his eyes went wide. He turned away again, back to the fire, fists clenched at his sides. "You _think_?"

"Well, how in the hell am I supposed to know when you don't speak two words strung together to me, not unless I'm picking on you. Which, by the way, why _do_ you let me pick on you like that?"

Snape's head bobbed with a laugh. "You don't have any idea how you are, do you?"

"How am I?"

"There's no preventing you from doing anything you want to do once you set your mind to it. Case in point, your being here in the Slytherin common room."

Sirius waited for him to keep speaking, but he didn't, and Sirius could think of nothing else to say. Maybe he hadn't come to talk anyway.

Gathering all the resolve he had, he rose from the chair and crossed the room. Snape had to have heard him come up behind him, but he didn't stop him, even if he stiffened in shock as Sirius's arms slid around his waist and his hands crossed over his stomach.

"Black," he said warningly.

"Tell me to get the hell out, if you really want me gone. Speak now or forever hold your peace."

Snape didn't say a word, so Sirius let his body come up flush with his. His felt so normal, smelled normal, too. Good, real; human.

But he was not the world's easiest human to deal with. He still held himself somewhat rigid, even as Sirius's breath fell against the back of his neck.

Snape said, "So help me, if you're—"

"Shut up. Just…shut up. I'm not screwing with your head."

"Not my head I'm worried about, actually," he mumbled, letting out a shaky breath. "God, just what are you up to?" Snape said, very nearly hysterical.

"I want you. Thought you'd realized that by now."

"But why?"

"Don't know. But I do." He pressed his lips to a patch of skin at the back of his neck, and Snape's whole body shuddered at that. It was fantastic. He whispered, "You don't believe me."

"Why should I?" He was trying to be firm with his voice, seem tough, but it wasn't at all working. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Yet you haven't made me leave, have you?"

Snape was actively trembling against him. "You're crazy."

"Mmm hmm."

Sirius slowly, cautiously let his fingers slip downward until they rested just under the waistband of Snape's trousers.

Snape let out a long breath, but he didn't jerk away, so Sirius let his hands slide inside, over his underwear but also over a cock that was half hard in his grasp. It filled even more as Snape groaned, deeply but quietly, giving a little thrust into his hand.

"Looks to me like you're crazy, too," Sirius said.

"Are you…gay, Black?"

"More or less. And you?" He squeezed.

"Fuck," Snape muttered. "Apparently."

Sirius pushed Snape's trousers and underwear down, drawing him out of the open V of his fly, palm on bare skin finally. Snape's whole body was so hot now, but especially his cock, lying thick in Sirius's grasp. He wondered if anybody had ever wanked him before.

He spoke the words against Snape's neck: "Will you let me?"

Snape just nodded.

When Sirius pressed a little closer, nudging his hard-on into Snape's ass, he felt him give a little jump, but that was nothing compared to the way the man's hips wiggled against him as he stroked him. Every movement sent a thrust of friction over Sirius's cock, pressed up against the zipper in his pants, grinding into too many layers of fabric. He wanted so much more than this, wanted to feel skin on skin, wanted to be buried inside him, make him keep trembling like this, all over, panting and murmuring his name. He wanted to make it so fucking good that he'd never want it from anybody else. He thought it was just the thrill of knowing he was probably the first to ever make Snape feel like this, but he knew, deep down, as he listened to him and gently sucked at the join of his shoulder and fisted his cock, that there was something really possessive about what he felt, and he hadn't at all expected that.

Snape was now gasping with nearly every stroke, but he somehow found the air for words.

"I didn't think-- I didn't know you would-- _God_ , I can't believe you- you— _fuck_ —want this."

"I do. Merlin help me. You have no bloody idea all the things I want."

Snape's ass pressed back against his hips, grinding into his cock. "You're so hard. Fuck."

"God, yeah. Wish I could…"

"What?"

"Not now. Just want you to come."

"What-- _fuck_ \--tell me, what do you want?"

With a gasping laugh, half delirious, he said, "Oh, mate, I want to fuck you so thoroughly you lose a few brain cells. You sure as hell need it. But there's too many clothes, not enough—" Snape's hips reflexively snapped back against his, and it was too much. "Merlin, I wish I could feel you."

"Yeah," Snape groaned. He was so close, almost gone. His head fell forward, but his ass kept grinding back into Sirius's cock, aching and dripping and about damn tired of being rubbed up against the inside of his trousers.

Snape said, "I want to do something. Let me touch you. Let me—"

Sirius yanked Snape's pants down over his hips and then tore at his own zipper until he'd managed to free himself. He guided his cock down, letting it come up between Snape's thighs, where everything was slick, so hot between their bodies. Snape let out a gasp and Sirius swore he saw a ragged smile come over his face as he pressed himself up behind him, as tight as he could.

He looked down over his shoulder as he stroked him even harder now while his hips thrust at Snape's ass. He could feel the slick head of his cock pushing into Snape's sack, and at some point, he absolutely lost all track of everything except the feel of Snape's cock throbbing in his hands and his own throbbing between his legs.

Suddenly, helplessly, he was shooting off against the inside of Snape's thigh, coming with a groan as he pulled and pulled at him, trying to get him to follow. Snape's hands had come back behind him, to clutch at Sirius's hips, and his fingernails nearly broke skin as he murmured _fuck_ like an exhalation of air and came over his hand, stream after stream until Sirius had milked it all out of him.

Snape seemed surprised when Sirius turned him and began dazedly casting clean-up charms, but he joined in rather quickly, and eventually, they had their clothing set right, most of the stickiness gone. But that didn't do a thing for the awkwardness in the room.

Snape sat back on the couch, hand over his face covering a bewildered smile. Sirius perched on the opposite arm, where Snape had been before, not less disorientated himself.

"So?" Sirius finally said.

"So."

"Um… Well, then."

Snape rolled his eyes and said, "Bleeding hell, Black. Are you always this articulate after you…"

"Shag someone?"

"That wasn't technically shagging."

"Would you want that?"

He smiled, apparently confused for a moment before he replied, "I think so."

"You _think_?"

"Well, I don't know. I've never…" He rolled his eyes again, this time at himself.

"With a guy or with anybody?"

Snape just glared.

Sirius smiled warmly. "It would be fine, you know. If you wanted to. Sex is easy."

"So you say."

"I do. What's harder is having a conversation with somebody. Especially you."

Snape smiled at that, shaking his head. "That's because you spend too much time around your obnoxious friends. You expect the world to revolve around you. You don't listen."

"What? I'm not the center of the universe?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. I'm different than you think. Sometimes, anyway," he said with a self-deprecating smile. "Try me," he said, dropping down onto seat and laying himself out so that his feet were very nearly in Snape's lap before he fixed his gaze on Snape's face.

Snape just stared, and when the silence threatened to stretch too long, Sirius said with a friendly smirk, "Not so easy as it looks, is it?"

Snape rolled his eyes, and his gaze stayed just to the left of Sirirus's face. He muttered, "Now you know why I don't talk to people much. I never know what to say."

Sirius could see, then, that he'd made a bit of a mistake, made him feel self-conscious. There was only really one remedy for that.

"No," Sirius said with a grin. "I think you don't talk to people because you're a stuck-up prat with absolutely no sense of humor."

Snape paused only for a second, long enough to read his face, then he was launching himself top of him, pinning his arms down, staring into his eyes with an equal mix of amusement and fire.

He said, "Then maybe it's best we stop talking."

Of course, they did end up talking that afternoon, two pairs of orgasms later. But by then, they'd both realized Sirius had been listening for weeks, and Snape had, indeed, in his own subtle way been talking.


End file.
